Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices #2)(179)

Cristina had grown used to a certain amount of controlled chaos in Los Angeles, but she found herself longing for the quiet of the Mexico City Institute, the silence of her mother's rose garden, and even the dreamy afternoons she'd spent with Diego and sometimes Jaime in the Bosque de Chapultepec.

And she missed Emma. Her thoughts were a whirl of confusion-everything was-and she wanted Emma to talk to her, Emma to braid her hair and tell her stupid jokes and make her laugh. Maybe Emma would be able to make some sense out of what had happened the night before.

She reached for her phone, and then drew her hand back. She wasn't going to start texting Emma all her problems, not when they were in the middle of so much. She glanced resolutely out the window instead-and saw Kieran, crossing the courtyard.

He was all in black. She didn't know where he'd gotten the clothes, but they made him look like a slender shadow under the gray and rainy sky that had replaced the morning's blue. His hair was blue-black, his hands hidden by gloves.

There was no rule that Kieran wasn't supposed to leave the Institute, not really. But he hated the city, Mark had said. Cold iron and steel everywhere. And besides, they were meant to keep him safe with them, not let him slip away before he could testify in front of the Clave. Not let anything happen to him.



       
         
       
        

And maybe he was upset. Maybe he was angry at Mark, jealous, though he hadn't shown it the night before. She slid off the windowsill. Kieran was already slipping through the opening of the gate, into the rainy shadows beyond, where he seemed to flicker and vanish, as faeries did.

Cristina dashed out of the library. She thought she heard someone call after her as she ran down the hallway, but she didn't dare pause. Kieran was fast. She'd lose him.

There was no time to stop to put on a Soundless rune, no time to look for her stele. She hurried down the stairs and grabbed up a jacket hanging on a peg in the entryway. She slid her arms into it and ducked out into the courtyard.

A throb went through her wrist, a warning ache that she was leaving Mark behind. She ignored it, following Kieran through the gate.

Maybe he wasn't doing anything wrong, she told herself, trying to be fair. He wasn't a prisoner in the Institute. Maybe Mark knew about this.

Kieran was hurrying down the narrow street, slipping from shadow to shadow. There was something furtive about the way he moved. Cristina was sure of it.

She kept to the side of the road as she followed him. The streets were deserted, damp with a sprinkling of rain. Without a glamour rune, Cristina was intensely conscious of not being spotted by a mundane-her runes were very visible, and she couldn't be sure they wouldn't react in a way that would tip Kieran off.

She worried that eventually they'd reach a busier street, and she'd be seen. Her arm was more than throbbing now; a sharp pain was lancing through it, as if a steel wire was being tightened around her wrist.

Yet as Kieran moved deeper into the heart of the city, the streets seemed to grow narrower rather than wider. The electric lights dimmed. The small iron fences around the trees vanished, and the branches above her began to reach together across the roads, forming a green canopy.

Kieran walked ahead of her steadily, a shadow among shadows.

Finally they reached a square of brick buildings facing inward, their fronts covered in ivy and green trellises. In the center of the square was a small patch of ordinary city greenery: a few trees, flat, well-cared-for grass, and a stone fountain in the middle. The faint splashing of water was audible as Cristina slipped behind a tree, pressing herself against the bark, and peered around the side at Kieran.

He had paused by the fountain, and a figure in a green cloak was approaching him, leisurely, from the far side of the small park. His face was familiar: He had soft brown skin and eyes that gleamed even in the darkness. His hands were long and slender; under the cloak, he wore a doublet worked with the broken crown of the Unseelie Court. It was Adaon.

"Kieran," he said wearily. "Why did you summon me?" 

Kieran gave a small bow. Cristina could sense that he was nervous. It was surprising, that she knew Kieran enough to know when he was nervous. She would have said he was a near stranger.

"Adaon, my brother," he said. "I need your help. I need what you know of spells."

Kieran's brother arched an eyebrow. "I would not set to casting spells in the mundane world, were I you, little dark one. You are among Nephilim, and they will disapprove, as will the warlocks and witches of this place."

"I do not want to cast a spell. I want to undo one. A binding spell."